I have different educated guesses, which I base on an analysis of East Coast (plus Atlanta) airports. I did an exhaustive but not absolutely comprehensive search of all flights (except a few where I could not read my handwriting) from extended Europe nonstop to Boston, New York JFK, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington IAD, Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami airports since it was only on all flights today. Here is that analysis:

So, what does all this mean, as it could be any one of the above 37 extended European departure points (or it could be a connecting-in-the-US flight which would destroy my logic)? I happen to like the places where past Amazing Race seasons have bypassed. The most prominent of those are Munich, Dusseldorf, Brussels, Madrid or Copenhagen, since I exclude Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester for being off the continent proper, Valencia for having only 1 flight and Leipzig and Liege for having 1 weird flight each. I think it could be any of the most prominent 5. We'll see.

Chateau,You must have missed the disclaimer that my analysis was not absolutely comprehensive due to taking just one day of the week and because I lost a few by not being able to read my own notes. I did know that Leipzig was a World Airways 4-digit flight number from Leipzig and I did put a question mark after it. I also put a question mark after Liege, which with other international service from Brussels nearby should not be likely to have nonstops to the U.S. East Coast but did have one to Atlanta.

You may also see that I dismissed as improbable any flights from Dubai, Kuwait, Damascus, Riyadh, Doha, Beirut, Jeddah, Muscat or Beirut from your list. I believe all of those are too far away for a traditional nonstop finale flight to the U.S. East Coast (even though some of those do have nonstop flights in the the target destinations) to be worth thinking about. However, you presented your speculation and I have countered with mine, but if you allow connecting flights in your thinking (you do and I don't), then all of your origins are possible.

The timing of the recent tweets from Atlanta suggest that Teams have arrived on flight DL 37 that left CDG at 9:20 AM - Sun 10-Jul-2011 and arrived at ATL at 1:06 PM - Sun 10-Jul-2011 (scheduled for 1:30 pm)

My opinion is that the AMS origin and the CDG origin are the most consistent with that tweet, since the tweeter did not identify whether he/she was at a gate or after U.S.Customs. If World Race Productions wanted to be really sneaky and had the F3 teams depart from Tel Aviv, a 522a arrival could have been difficult to spot.

My opinion is that the AMS origin and the CDG origin are the most consistent with that tweet, since the tweeter did not identify whether he/she was at a gate or after U.S.Customs. If World Race Productions wanted to be really sneaky and had the F3 teams depart from Tel Aviv, a 522a arrival could have been difficult to spot.

Check your sources, the flight form CDG is DL 37 not DL 27The FRA DL15 actually takes off at 9:45 am and lands at 1:45 pmAlso, what about DXB at 5:45 am ?MEX at 5:43 am ?

The timing of the recent tweets from Atlanta suggest that Teams have arrived on flight DL 37 that left CDG at 9:20 AM - Sun 10-Jul-2011 and arrived at ATL at 1:06 PM - Sun 10-Jul-2011 (scheduled for 1:30 pm)

My opinion is that the AMS origin and the CDG origin are the most consistent with that tweet, since the tweeter did not identify whether he/she was at a gate or after U.S.Customs. If World Race Productions wanted to be really sneaky and had the F3 teams depart from Tel Aviv, a 522a arrival could have been difficult to spot.

Check your sources, the flight form CDG is DL 37 not DL 27The FRA DL15 actually takes off at 9:45 am and lands at 1:45 pmAlso, what about DXB at 5:45 am ?MEX at 5:43 am ?

Chateau,

Is Mexico City in Europe (even extended Europe which goes as far as Tel Aviv by my definition? Not exactly. Same for Dubai.You are correct that I have a typo in transferring information for DL37. I also made a mistake on DK15 and LH444 by reporting their departure times rather than the arrival times which were what was needed (however, this does not impact either of the 2 primary flights which might have been the one used from CDG or AMS).

I decided to go the extra mile and examine the hypothesis of where in extended Europe and the Middle East flights could ahve originated and landed in Paris CDG or Amsterdam Schiphol by 8am today. Here is the list for CDG arrivals:

Is Mexico City in Europe (even extended Europe which goes as far as Tel Aviv by my definition? Not exactly. Same for Dubai.

Apskip, when you write :

Quote

Here are all the flights that have arrived in Atlanta today (starting with Chateau's favorite from Tel Aviv):

That means you are listing all the flights that have arrived in Atlanta today ... If you are filtering the list based on the being in Europe you should say so.

The reason MEX and DBX are important incoming airports is that routes that originate from Europe could connect through these airports.

Please see my post of 3:38 pm (eastern time) where I present the possibility of flight DL 37 being the one used by Teams today. You reiterated that possibility 30 minutes later in a post of your own at 4:08 pm. You may want to read the thread before you present information as your own.

Also, regarding your list of flights connecting with DL 37 to get to ATL, I hope you were aware that I had already posted a list in the Speculation thread for flights connecting in CDG and using the DL 37 flight. You may want to take a look at that before you generate a list of your own.

Brussels SN3631 I already listed this one, it's the BRU that arrives at 7:30 am in CDG.

MAD VY8202 I already listed this one, it's the MAD that arrives at 7:55 am in CDG.

NCE AF7713 I already listed this one, it's the NCE that arrives at 8:00 am in CDG.

From your list, the following are ruled out because they don't exist or there are alternate routes that would get a Team to ATL earlier even if they left later from the exact same location.

TLV LY229 "Sorry, we could not find the flight LY 229 in our system." (flightstates.com)

AMM AF3887 This is not valid for consideration because Teams would not select it because they could have landed 20 minutes sooner (based on Schedule) by taking AF 1306 leaving CDG at 7:25 am and arriving at 8:35 am in DUS. Then taking DL 25 leaving DUS at 9:20 am and arriving at 1:10 pm in ATL.

I failed to detect that the international to international minimum connect time for AMS is 50 minutes, not the 1 hour I assumed. That resulted in my not picking up a 805am arrival time in AMS from Helsinki and several other places (Basel WX5200, Strasbourg YS 5284 and Stavanger KL1976) as OK for connecting to DL175. That is a connection that I personally would not book for Schiphol Airport if I depended on it. If teams had to make it and missed, they would have to take either:

DL239 which arrived ATL 234p orKL621 which arrived ATL 845p

Pillowpal, ATL is not the final city until we actually spot F3 teams there. AR19 is not over for RFF until it is over.

I was kind of discounting Helsinki myself, as I figured that the TAR production staff would want to have the teams arrive in the morning rather than in the afternoon. As Apskip pointed out, if you miss the tight connection on that set of flights, there are a couple of flights arriving around 2:30 - 3:00 PM and everything else arrives after 5:30 PM, which would probably ensure a sundown low light conclusion to the race and I doubt if they wanted that. However, since the teams arrived at around the right time for the 12:55 PM flight, I think Helsinki remains a possibility, though probably only about a 30%-40% possibility.

It's too bad that the tweeter in Helsinki isn't responding to my questions. A little information from her could clear this up quickly.

Chateau will be the man...but there was a possible Paris flight as well...

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kristenleea

Hi! I was the Girl in the Train at the Atlanta Airport! It was So COOL seeing the "Team" Guy and Girl along with the Camera Guy, Sound Guy and someone else ignoring me on his phone...Especially Ignoring me after I asked if they were on the Amazing Race! Craziness! I have been enjoying reading the Forums, but wish I had out my camera phone to take Video! DUH!

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kristenleea

I was in the D terminal, and they were already in the train....I arrived between 1-2.....So, they must have arrived in the E gate.I've done some research, and the flights arriving in the E gate around the same time as me are:

kristenleea!!! We are glad you are here!! Thanks so much for the info!!

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan